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Jaina Ryder
Jaina Ryder was the biological daughter of Lord Ryder, and was one of the few humanoid Angels in existence. She was killed by Jehovah shortly before the Val'kyr Uprising and was generally considered the catalyst of that war. After her death, her body was encased in a preservation crystal and kept in the Capital Vault. Biography Mortal Predating the Val'kyr by almost two decades, Jaina lived a typical mortal life. The only difference was the large, birdlike wings that protruded from her body. At adulthood, Jaina's wingspan was almost 30 feet and she was more than capable of flight. She also grew to possess minor magical prowess. As a teenager, Jaina took part in a handful of skirmishes that precluded the Val'kyr Uprising before ultimately being killed by Jehovah. Her death sparked the Val'kyr Uprising, leading to Jehovah being ousted from the Capital. Posthumous Jaina's existence was a tightly-kept secret by Lord Ryder, and not even other Lords were privvy to this information. The crystal that contained Jaina's body was translucent, with only a vaguely human shape being able to be seen from the outside. As such, the few people who found Jaina were unable to determine who or what she was, and often put it out of their mind. Tolrah Thire did as much when she discovered Jaina after breaking into the vault and finding the Staff of Many Wonders. Elethyn Crane once discovered Jaina's existence by reading the books kept in Ryder's study, but her questions were very quickly and forcefully silenced by Ryder. Trivia *It is never explained why Jaina was kept in crystal instead of being given a typical Val'kyr funeral (cremation). *Many aspects of Jaina's characterization suffered from Lily's then inexperience as a writer, and ultimately laid the foundation for later characters in the series. **Jaina is the first LGBT character in the series, being gay. However, this was not explored very much during her time as a character. Lily regretted this, and this shortcoming was never repeated. Nearly all LGBT characters have spouses when introduced in Lily's writing. **Jaina was also the first explicitly sex-positive character in the series, however like above Lily regretted how lazily it was handled and subsequent characters (Sutanu) were given a lot more open comfort and comedy value. **Jaina wasn't considered to be very smart, and often made wildly inappropriate or self-destructive decisions, often to fuel comedy. Elements of this remain in Phyaun and Sutanu, who have far more well-placed humor and gain comedy from making Lord Ryder miserable. **Jaina is the first, and last, character to have biological wings. Factoring for their existence proved to be problematic and Lily often forgot about them when writing conflicts. Similar issues are found in Sutanu, where narration often describes her as making actions that involve the eyes despite not having any. It is much less egregious, however. *During her time as an active character, Jaina was the most heavily criticized character in the cast, often for many of the same issues mentioned above. Category:Main Characters Category:Val'kyr Category:Feminine Category:Deceased